Today was the Virginia Primary where people vote to help determine who will represent each party in the Presidential election. I had voted two other times since I moved to Virginia on both local and federal candidates. Both times there weren’t very many people there with me. Today, I waited in line. It was great to see people actually voting. In Australia, everyone has to vote or they will be fined. In America, when 3o percent of eligible voters participate in a primary, they call it a great turnout. In Virginia, you can choose on the day whether you want to vote Democrat or Republican. There was no one standing in the Republican voting line. Everyone in line was waiting to vote in the Democratic Primary. When I moved here, I was thrilled to find out that Virginia had computerized voting with a paper ballot optional. However, I seemed to be the only one fond of pressing buttons to select a candidate. People trust computers to access their bank account and pay their taxes, but not to vote. They were all taking their paper ballots and their pencils to the voting booth. So, Dale, even though I still pay the bills by writing a check ( I gave up that whole EFTPOS thing when I left Australia, and went back to the dark ages), I did vote using a computer. One woman who was working at the polling place gave Zeke and I stickers of an American flag with the words, “I Voted” on it. I looked at it and laughed trying to think of any Aussie I knew who would wear an Aussie flag “I Voted” sticker. I, of course, wore my sticker proudly.
As I’m writing this, it’s about 2320 on 31 December 2007. I’ve been trying to clean out my email inbox while waiting for the New Year to roll around. Earlier this evening, I celebrated by having a cheeseburger, cheese fries, and hot wings at the DFAC. I even had peanut butter cake and ice cream for dessert (thanks to Glenn for pointing out the peanut butter cake).
I started the day by visiting a project site in downtown Mosul. The project is a relatively small repair of a drinking water treatment plant in the Dandan neighborhood. Driving to the site was a little interesting this morning. The street we took leading away from the FOB was packed with pedestrians. I think they were mostly pilgrims returning from the Hajj to Mecca. There were some return flights last night to the passenger terminal on FOB Diamondback. The site visit itself was very quick; we just needed to verify that the contractor had completed the work as reported.
The rest of the day was devoted to planning future project visits. This means I got to play around in FalconView plotting project sites on the electronic map. I also washed my laundry today; I even remembered to get everything out of the dryer this time. However, I just remembered that I haven’t made my bed yet. I guess that’s the first thing I’ll be doing when the New Year rolls around shortly! While I was carrying my laundry back to my trailer, I saw this note posted on the outside of the laundry trailer.
In the move from Diamondback to Marez, I apparently lost one box. I remember packing my slinky in a box when I was cleaning off my desk. But when I unpacked in my new office, my slinky was nowhere to be found. I think Sarah and Glenn are tired of me whining about my missing slinky. Oh well, 6 minutes until midnight. I guess I’ll go make my bed now instead of waiting until next year!
Happy New Year!
This is my first post in a new category - Must Have Deployment Gear. No matter what Mugs may say, I don’t collect a lot of personal field gear. I will admit to possessing an astounding array of boots and gloves, but if your hands or feet are uncomfortable, you’ll be miserable the whole time you’re in the field! Anyway, I do believe that the right tool can make all the difference.
Someone recently sent me a collection of comics from Bob on the FOB. One of the best is titled Geardo. According to Bob on the FOB, a Geardo is “someone who spends at least 50% of each paycheck (before taxes) on the latest & greatest gear, just to have the latest and greatest gear, regardless of whether or not that gear will actually help the wearer perform his/her duties.” See Geardo and other comics at http://www.bobonthefob.com/pastbob.html.
The first item in my Must Have Deployment Gear list is the spork. For my birthday this year, Mugs and the kids bought me various small pieces of deployment gear. My spork is one of those items.
This awesome spork is from a company called Light My Fire. If you would like to purchase your very own Light My Fire spork, you can find it online at Campmor.
When I finished my run tonight, I stretched for 10 minutes. Make sure you tell Lay Fong that I’m still stretching; I don’t want to get in trouble again. Anyway, after showering, I used my spork to eat a bowl of Smart Start cereal for dinner. I know in my last post I heaped praises on the DFAC, and now I’m writing about eating cereal for dinner in my hooch. Technically, it was DFAC food, since I brought the cereal and milk from the DFAC. But that’s not the point of this post. This was all made possible by the spork. I carry the spork in one of the cargo pockets on my ACUs and am ready to eat at a moments notice!
